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General Hospital endures

LOS ANGELES, CALIF.—The reports of the death of the soap opera have been greatly exaggerated.

It was touch-and-go there for a while. With daytime dramas being cancelled to the left and right of them, the cast of General Hospital was prepared for the worst.

“We were living on death row,” concedes GH veteran Anthony “Luke” Geary.

But at 50 years old this coming April 1, General Hospital is alive and thriving, with 24 Daytime Emmy nominations for this pivotal season.

“I think we were all pretty emotional, when we were so shaky about a year ago,” says Geary, who won one of those Emmys. “I think we were all pretty thrilled and excited and a bit emotional about being acknowledged for the hard work.”

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Another big boost, the cast confirms, was the merger of the remnants of the cancelled One Life to Live with the surviving GH ensemble, including actor Michael Easton.

“It was bittersweet,” Easton says. “At the same time, it’s been exciting to come over and get to work with these guys. It’s been a new energy for me.

“We were pretty aware for about a year there at One Life that the wrecking ball was right outside the door, and we worked at a pretty high pace to try to make that work. And it’s been interesting to come over here and have the same feeling.

“I felt it woke me up. I might have been in a stupor the last little bit there, but these guys have snapped me out of it and I’m really happy to be here. I feel really fortunate.”

There were rumours when One Life to Live was cancelled that GH would soon follow, to make room for Katie Couric’s Katie. Even Couric herself was opposed to that notion.

“Obviously soap operas have a huge and very loyal following,” she said at her own session at the Television Critics Association tour. “I think they fill a need for a lot of people and so I think they can peacefully coexist with a lot of the other offerings on daytime television. They’re an institution.

“I used to watch some soap operas when I worked nights at WRC in Washington, when I was a local news reporter on the night beat. I often would watch some soaps before I headed to work later in the day, if I was on, like, the 3 to 11 shift, and you know, as I said, they’ve been around a long time.”

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Shift workers like Couric make up a large part of the dedicated GH demographic. “Anybody that works at night,” deadpans Geary. “Like hookers. I’m very big with hookers.”

Athletes are another unexpected audience, says actor Jason Thompson. “Sports stars, people working out . . . guys and women that are training during the day with TVs in front of their exercise bikes.”

“We are in people’s homes during the day,” adds co-star Laura Wright. “We are part of people’s milestones, when they are in a hospital with a sick parent, when the women are pregnant and they have their new babies, and they come home. It’s not just people ironing. It’s people who work at night, athletes and musicians . . . college students are big fans of the show.

“For 50 years, we have been telling stories five days a week, 52 weeks a year, and what I like about it is that it has stayed the same, that it is this same kind of cultural anomaly that hasn’t changed like everything else and that we still are part of people’s families.

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